


don't look back, baby follow me

by Batman



Series: jaywalkers [23]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 19:38:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9087322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batman/pseuds/Batman
Summary: There is a strange bubble of silence despite Himuro singing some kind of song about smoking weed and partying. Kenma follows Iwaizumi's gaze to where Oikawa is on the stage, kneeling to get a good shot of Himuro with Bokuto's camera, whooping in appreciation.The bubble of silence thickens, and Kenma swallows, his phone's notepad application at the ready for whatever entry he's sure he's about to make for his notebook later.'I couldn't do it,' Iwaizumi says finally. 'His condoms were Rilakkuma.'Today in jaywalking: astronomy, anthropology, and a third, unnameable discipline.





	

**Author's Note:**

> MOM HOLY FUCK
> 
> (Title from "Midnight Memories" by One Direction. Yep, again. That means exactly what you think it means.)

From the moment he stepped into the world, Kozume Kenma has had to deal with a lot of nonsense from other human beings. He only wishes that the drawing to the close of his second year at university could have done something to change this slightly tragic facet of his existence (perhaps it is not even a facet; it is the entire foundation of his existence) but he supposes that one can't have it all. In the meantime, he has met Hinata, and that is not half bad either.

 _Le Petit Rainbow_ has a way of changing colours through the seasons just like the trees outside. Kenma has been noticing it over the years that he has been coming to it (three, just like Bokuto and Kuroo, even though he didn't start his degree at the same time as them). At the start of the year in the tail end of summer when the clouds start to gather in a way that makes you think they're here for good, it becomes the kind of place you would want to sit in with your reading and markers while it rains outside, and for Kenma is a kind of workspace outside of home where he doesn't even regret it if he forgot to bring his purple highlighter (and not even because Kuroo usually has an entire pack in the kitchen anyway).

When monsoon changes to autumn and the leaves start to fall, _Le Petit Goldfinch_ puts out new specials, cinnamon and ginger and apple pie, Kuroo's favourite. The coat rack comes out and one of Kenma's favourite things is entering and seeing all the different scarves hung up on it, like it is some sort of bizarre, friendly tree with as many different colours as there are people.

Winter brings snow, and little lights that Kenma never helps set up because it is simply too funny to see Yaku yelling at Kuroo and Sawamura about it. There are very few things about winter that Kenma finds as funny as the decorations season, actually, and he has more saved Snapchats of it than any of his friends would ever suspect him of having. Oikawa with cappuccino foam on his nose and three pencils in the minuscule bun on the top of his head, laughing hysterically at the sight of Sawamura tripping over a tangle of tinsel. Yaku screaming at anything and everything that moves or so much as breathes wrong around him. Himuro and Izuki arguing in the background over whose turn it was to do the dishes.

Spring means hay fever for Kenma, and he spends as much time inside his apartment as possible, and maybe he is a little rueful about having to miss that time of the year when Kuroo voluntarily handles _flowers_ and sets them up in little vases on the tables, arranges them near the displays outside, cringing all the while at how very stereotypical it is. But Bokuto always takes a lot of pictures, more than Kenma does and of better quality, and those always end up in all of their hard drives through some way or another. Flower crowns and roses, cherry blossom petals falling like the rains of August took heart and said _it's spring._ Kenma sneezes his way through finals, snuffles in his sleep, but when he comes out on the other side he has a set of satisfactory grades in his hand and the willingness to step out into summer.

 

●●●

 

Kenma thinks _Le Petit Sun_ was made for summer.

 

●●●

 

He has always had to deal with a lot of nonsense from other human beings. One of the biggest (and most important) reasons behind this is the fact that he chooses to observe them closely enough to spot all the nonsense. The way Kuroo turned up with twenty croissants at his doorstep two months ago, shadows under his eyes and hair swept back wildly, saying _I already gave Akaashi twenty, I still have some left over,_ sounding like no one had ever made him this sad in life until now, including his own father.

(Kenma had finally asked him about the great mystery of the plain versus chocolate croissants. 'Why do you make plain ones sometimes? Sometimes you make chocolate ones. Is it seasonal?'

'I don't know why you think I'm that smart,' Kuroo had answered, laughing. 'I don't know why you think I'm that smart when I do things. I do things and I don't know why I do them, okay?'

'You're not talking about the croissants.'

'Fuck you. I could be talking about the croissants.')

Kenma loves watching people. Himuro takes summer _very_ personally, almost as much as Bokuto does. When the sun starts to come out regularly, he switches out his bomber jacket for tank tops and sunglasses, wears silver chains and wide smiles, changes his song selections from soft songs to ones that oblige the audience to sing along. Izuki always indulges him, laughs and shakes his head whenever Himuro gets too excited and loses his breath while singing, does a few theatrics with his guitar that make even Kenma laugh.

 _Le Petit Joy_ is overflowing today. The last leg of finals has ended, which means the entire campus is free now. Tables pushed together so sets of classmates who braved law exams together don't have to sit separately, booths full of discarded backpacks and Ray Ban cases because everyone's standing at the bar, yelling out requests to Granrodeo and trying to make each other dance. The sun is so bright outside that Kenma would've been annoyed at its golden glare if not for the way it's changing the colours and shadows of everything inside. Catching on the grey of Himuro's eyes and making them look green, catching on Kenma's milkshake glass and glinting in his eyes. He'd almost say he can't hear the music over the chatter, but they complement each other so that it just seems like one constant hum, the true spirit of summer as Kenma thought he would never know it from his spot in the corner.

 

 **Shouyou [15:15]  
** SAVE US A TABLE

 **Me [15:16]  
** saved u one already, ur five right?

 **Shouyou [15:16]  
** YES!!!!! JUST GOT DONE WITH HISTORY!!! I MIGHT ACTUALLY PASS THAT ONE!!!!!

 

Himuro takes summer very personally, but Bokuto takes it to the next level. The moment the temperatures hit the positives, he was already back in his incorrigible polos and flipflops, a pair of shiny sunglasses even more obnoxious than Himuro's or Oikawa's. (Quoting Kuroo, _chrome shades are for douchebags,_ which Kenma thinks is rich coming from someone who wears Toms and wayfarers, but he supposes these are details that make up the eventual landscape of human nonsense that is featured so frequently in all of his little black notebooks.)

He's at the bar— more precisely, sitting atop it, legs wrapped around one of the stools as he holds his camera out of an indignant Yaku's reach, cackling loudly. Kenma has not a single doubt that Bokuto must have taken an extremely incriminating picture as he is wont to do, but it is always refreshing to see at least one human being who isn't afraid of Yaku's butane torch. Especially one who is the _reason_ the rest of the campus is afraid of Yaku's butane torch. Be that as it may, Bokuto is laughing loudly, holding his camera out of Yaku's reach, looking like he's two seconds away from falling over backwards and behind the counter.

The only thing keeping him from doing so is the fact that Akaashi is sitting on the stool beside him, an arm wrapped around the legs that are wrapped around the stool. He isn't paying attention to Bokuto's antics; he's been scrolling through his phone ever since he came in, smiling at the screen occasionally and moving his thumb over the material of Bokuto's jeans.

Something both of Kenma's mothers had told him a lot, growing up, is that people aren't incomplete. It took him a long time to understand that reasoning, and sometimes he still has to struggle to wrap his mind around it, especially when he sees certain things in the middle of all his observations. It's hard to imagine that Hinata and Kageyama don't complete each other, or that they don't complete the group they have with Tsukishima and Yamaguchi as a package deal. That all four of them together aren't completed by Yachi and her new puppy, or that all five of those don't complete the campus as a pack of ragtag first-years who have little to no idea what they're doing most of the time.

In a way, Kenma supposes that they _do._ There are places for everyone, and people for all those places, and when those places fill in it makes a chatter like the one brimming here right now, as Himuro takes to the microphone.

'Take a look at my girlfriend,' Himuro sings, and the crowd bursts into laughter and cheers, _oh God, that's such an old number, get out._ 'She's the only one I got.'

Kenma supposes that people aren't incomplete, either.

When Kuroo steps out of the kitchen, dusting his hands off on his apron, Bokuto turns to him like a magnet. He reaches backwards and slings an arm around Kuroo's neck, pulling him in close and trying to fiddle with the camera with one hand to show him whatever blackmail material he acquired on Yaku, while Kuroo supports his back with one hand and laughs. Akaashi continues scrolling.

Kenma won't say Kuroo looks like a different person, because people aren't incomplete. He doesn't look different; his smile is still the same, his laugh is just as loud, his hair is just as messy. But he is _more_ of himself, as if something that he was holding inside himself, so tightly that no one even saw it, has finally sifted through his grip to fill up the empty parts that he'd left alone. Kuroo used to command the attention of a room; now he takes up space.

Himuro, while singing, often likes to stop at random tables and jam along with the song, holding his microphone out to whoever is sitting there, making them sing alone for a line or two. He's dynamic, light and sprightly in the way he skips through the room, laughing and smiling like no one has got a care in the world. Kuroo always laughs and humours him, shaking his head, mouthing along to lyrics and doing air guitar riffs when his hands are free. In the summer— sometimes it feels like it's only in the summer— he dances his way to different tables, balancing his tray high above his head in one hand and refusing to hand over the strawberry lemonade some girl ordered unless she gets up to join him in singing.

Sometimes Himuro targets Kuroo, throws an arm around his waist and refuses to let him go until Kuroo gives up and sings into the microphone. Kuroo has always been the sweetheart of the room, after all; a voice like an angel's, the way Bokuto always says it. He's doing it right now, leaning into where Himuro's holding the microphone up, singing _mama I fell in love again_ and grinning when the crowd cheers. Kenma raises his phone to take a picture, captions it _summer is the season for idiots_ and puts on a temperature filter.

 

●●●

 

He observes people closely enough to spot all the nonsense.

Kenma has picked a corner of a previously empty booth, where he can sit pressed up against the cool glass of the facade and watch everything without having to move. None of the lights are on since the sun is enough, the light wood of the counter and other furnishings spacing out the room, the clinks of glasses and chopsticks and spoons. The sunlight's changed its angle; Sugawara actually looks like the ethereal being most of the campus mistakes him for. He is also sitting across Kenma all of a sudden, nodding in greeting before turning his attention back to Iwaizumi, who has flopped down on the empty place to Kenma's left.

Beside Sugawara, Ushijima is waiting with rapt attention too, something that Kenma has only seen a handful of times in the past two years. (It doesn't go to say that Ushijima doesn't pay attention; rather, he pays a courteous amount of attention to _everything,_ making the presence of actual curiosity very interesting.)

Sugawara and Ushijima stare intently at Iwaizumi, carefully enough that even Kenma turns in his seat to take a look.

There is a strange bubble of silence despite Himuro singing some kind of song about smoking weed and partying. Kenma follows Iwaizumi's gaze to where Oikawa is on the stage, kneeling to get a good shot of Himuro with Bokuto's camera, whooping in appreciation.

The bubble of silence thickens, and Kenma swallows, his phone's notepad application at the ready for whatever entry he's sure he's about to make for his notebook later.

'I couldn't do it,' Iwaizumi says finally. 'His condoms were Rilakkuma.'

 

●●●

 

His mothers always told him, both of them, that people aren't incomplete. Sawamura and Sugawara were never putting up the act of being oblivious that others thought they might have been; not a single thing has changed between them since they got together. It's true that Kuroo and Oikawa were absolutely ruthless in how they teased Sawamura once the truth was out, asking him loudly why he was going to pick Sugawara up from the studio when Sawamura has been doing it for years already, crowing in laughter and saying _exactly_ when Ushijima said he'd always assumed that they were together.

Kenma hasn't seen them kiss, ever. Not like Bokuto and Akaashi, who give each other light kisses in greeting and parting, Bokuto having those moments of his when his vision narrows down on Akaashi and he forgets other people are in the room. No, the reason Kenma knows that Sawamura and Sugawara were never putting up an act is because they already had everything they wanted, just without the correct name to give it. (Kenma doesn't think the name has ever mattered much to them.)

He remembers Bokuto tripping over himself around Akaashi three quarters of a year ago, almost as nervous as he still gets around the older Tanaka sibling. (The younger Tanaka and his redhead girlfriend don't kiss in public either, but Kozume thinks that has more to do with both of them being approximately twelve years old.) The change he sees now was neither slow nor fast; it just was. They hold hands now, him and Akaashi; take care of each other in little ways that are too casual to be intimate.

  
Sawamura and Sugawara, who have had that since the first time Kenma saw them, don't really understand the concept of change. He sees it in the way they smile, the way they talk to others but gravitate back to each other as if their way of looking at the world has always been to do it together, which it has. Holding hands doesn't mean completing one another, Kenma thinks, because people aren't incomplete. Sawamura fixing Sugawara's collar as Sugawara sips his iced tea isn't them completing one another; it's two different being together because that's what they want in their lives.

 

 **Shouyou [15:43]  
** SORRY LITTLE LATE TOBIO WANTED TO CHANGE

 **Shouyou [15:43]  
** I CANT WAIT TO SEE U!!!!!!!!

 **Me [15:45]  
** shouyou, we met yesterday

 **Shouyou [15:45]  
** I KNOW!!! I CANT WAIT TO SEE U AGAIN!!!

 **Me [15:46]  
** ( ´ ∀ ` )

 

●●●

 

No, Kenma loves people.

Kenma loves observing people because he loves people. Perhaps he does not do it in the way Bokuto does it, laughing and loving as loudly as he can, jumping right into a crowd with open arms, trusting them to catch him. Kenma doesn't do it in the way Hinata does it either, with his oversized _Free Hugs_ T-shirt and his scooter and that way he has of refusing to believe there exists a lick of bad in the world. Kenma doesn't necessarily love people in a sense that makes him want to interact with all of them, or with many of them, or even with anyone outside the select few that he feels comfortable with.

But Kenma loves their entity. Their entirety. Kenma loves the fact that his personal bubble is a choice, and that outside of it there exists a world which keeps turning on without asking anything of him. Kenma loves finding safe spaces in big places and watching from there, because he appreciates the peace and quiet of his apartment more when he has these strange warm memories of being surrounded by sound.

 _Le Petit Moon_ is made for summer. Kenma sees everything from the print of Oikawa's loose shirt to the strain of Michimiya's arms as she helps move a table closer to the booth for Shimizu and Ennoshita to sit down at. Kenma sees the way the rays of the sun shift when they hit a spot on the glass facade where Kuroo didn't clean off the soap well enough, leaving swipes like wipers on windshields. Kenma hears Himuro's voice and Izuki's guitar and the snap of the shutter on Bokuto's camera, Kenma hears bits and pieces of conversations that no one cares if he overhears; book reports and plans to go to Vertigo, what they're doing over the summer break and how beautiful Matsuoka's little sister looks today.

It's made for summer; summer is made for them. Winter has its charms and Kenma loves hot chocolate, but summer is youth and every kind of youth; Akaashi's lips on Bokuto's jaw, Yaku's hands on the coffee machine, Kenma's phone buzzing with texts from his friends. Youth is the way every evening in this café feels like a new beginning, like the first notes of the guitar in a song before the percussion kicks in, like a singer shouting something in a live performance that isn't in the actual track, something like _I love you guys, here's one more for the road._

Kenma loves it all, complete people in complete places.

The door almost bursts open, which is how Kenma knows it's Hinata and Kageyama. Hinata's parked his scooter just on the outside like he doesn't believe that anyone would ever want to steal it, and the sun is so bright on his furious orange hair, his big, brown eyes. He's wearing that shirt of his again, like he expects the entire room to be waiting for him to throw himself into their arms. Behind him, Kageyama is stretching and adjusting his shirt sleeves, raising a hand to Nishinoya in greeting, pulling his sunglasses off to perch them on his dark hair.

'Yamaguchi and Yachi got caught up buying something for Pin,' Hinata says breathlessly once he's practically cannonballed into Kenma's booth. 'I think they want to get, like, bows? I don't know. Tobio was hungry so we came over first. Did you eat? Have you packed?'

'Yeah, but it's _Iwa-chan_ ,' Oikawa is saying to Ushijima behind Hinata's shoulder, as if _but it's Iwa-chan_ explains everything. 'His entire _life_ is one of those _you had to be there_ moments.'

Kenma deals with a lot of nonsense from other human beings. Kuroo knows that he's a stress baker, but he doesn't know why he bakes plain croissants sometimes and chocolate ones at other times. Hinata is an utter nightmare if so much as consumes three drops of Red Bull; in fact, Kenma thinks the fumes might be enough. Bokuto is an utter nightmare even without caffeine and energy drinks. And Kenma loves them all, every single one of them with their nonsensical habits and habits that only make too much painful sense; he loves the way Bokuto's jaw tenses if someone looks at Kuroo for too long, every little squabble Hinata and Kageyama have, the way the dance team always finds a way to work with Kise's outlandish ideas.

Behind the counter, Kuroo has been glancing over at him and Hinata once every couple of minutes, and Kenma knows what he's wondering. Kenma knows that Kuroo's too busy to pull out his phone and text and ask, and Kenma knows that Kuroo is actually not bothered about that at all. He loves the anticipation Kuroo probably thinks he's doing a good job of keeping off his face, the way he makes his coffee as carefully as ever, but keeps looking over to the door every time a customer turns away.

Summer is youth, every kind of youth; summer is them, complete and finding their place. The door opens slowly; Tsukishima steps in. Summer comes to a standstill for Kuroo.

 

●●●

 

Kuroo isn't a different person, because people aren't incomplete. Kuroo is more of himself, taking up space; the world is shifting around him. The room is shifting around him to accommodate the change, colours shimmering into more vibrant versions of themselves, the sunlight adjusting its angle and shining in through the windshield wiper marks on the glass facade of Kuroo's home.

People aren't incomplete. He's heard as much growing up, but he's been watching Kuroo for the past month, seeing the way he smiles down at his phone. He's watching Kuroo right now, as movement ceases even though Himuro continues to sing, oblivious. Everyone is oblivious, moving just a few beats slower than usual, and Kenma's watching from his vantage point as if staring at a frozen screen where Tsukishima and Kuroo are the only ones in real time. He's watching the sun in Kuroo's eyes, and he's heard that people aren't incomplete, but that's not the entire truth of it.

Kenma loves the way Bokuto's jaw tenses if someone looks at Kuroo for too long. He knows Bokuto had to carry Kuroo home from Vertigo two months ago, blind drunk and delirious. But he knows Bokuto spent fifteen minutes stuttering through jokes and tears when he found out about— well, when he found out.

 _You know how Kuroo's sometimes kind of not all there?_ Bokuto had said, finally, and Kenma had nodded. _It's like...in Tsukki, he found a place to go to when he's not here._

People aren't incomplete, but that's not the entire truth of it. The entire truth is that people aren't incomplete, but that lives can be. It's not about there being a specific place for all kinds of people in life like there is for all kinds of people on campus. It's not about kinds of people; it's about _people._ Whoever comes walking in, and in little ways or big ways, is essentially what you didn't know you've been looking for all along. When the room shifts around Kuroo to accommodate the change, when everything changes _but_ Kuroo— it's not his person that's complete now. It's his life.

Youth is Tsukishima putting his hands into his pockets and walking over to the bar slowly, while Kuroo stays frozen with one hand holding up a mug half-filled with milk. Youth is summer, and summer is Tsukishima leaning against the counter and starting up a conversation with Akaashi while Kuroo finishes filling the mug up, smile visible from across the room.

'Kenma? Did you pack?'

 _Le Petit Constellation_ is youth. Kenma studies anthropology, and doesn't like loud places if he can't make a quiet one for himself within them. He loves watching people, so he watches. Himuro sings, and Bokuto records, and Sugawara grins at the sparkling sun.

Tsukishima reaches out when Kuroo turns back to him, and wipes off a smudge of flour that had been on Kuroo's cheek all afternoon.

'Kenma?'

'I packed,' Kenma says. He turns to Shouyou and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> [Here is a playlist for _Le Petit I Will Never Tell You_.](https://open.spotify.com/user/heiwajimas/playlist/7hEIDXBVh52Q8CWUGlAWpO) For best results, listen with [Coffitivity](https://coffitivity.com/). Unapologetically mainstream _and_ unapologetically indie jams handpicked by Kuroo Tetsurou.
> 
> I love you guys, and I love these guys, as has been well-established over the year and a half that I have dedicated to writing their stories. Those stories are only beginning, but this one is drawing to a close. If _jaywalkers_ was a day of 24 hours, this is hour 23. The last piece goes up on the 30th, after which it's a wrap. I didn't want to spring it on you out of nowhere (though this is hardly the world's most advanced warning) so I thought I'd say it here! 
> 
> Of course I'll be talking a lot more on the 30th, I have so much to say. But this was just me telling you that it's close to midnight and closing hours for _Le Petit You Will Never Know,_ we're taking the last orders in fifteen. Thank you for coming and please stay a couple more days so that we can see the kids off together!
> 
> You can find me on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/soldierpoetking) and [Tumblr](http://sturlsons.tumblr.com).


End file.
